Our Strange Kind of Love
by proosh
Summary: It's not that Alfred doesn't want to love Ivan, he just doesn't know how.


Hey guys! Sorry for the delays on just about everything, I promise I'm still alive. The next chapter of Earthborn is coming along, but I just needed to get this out of my system. There isn't really any explanation for this, but it's my first time writing Russia! I hope you all enjoy it!

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"Was the biting really necessary?"

"Yes."

"Screw off."

"Done and done, Alfred."

In that moment, Alfred was tempted to wrap his hands around the Russian's stupid fucking throat.

"At least you can cover up. We've been screwin' for, what, half a century now? You still haven't taken that stupid scarf off."

Ivan took a long drag of his cigarette; thank Christ the motel was too cheap to have smoke detectors.

"We've been screwing for half a century and you still haven't told me you love me." He said it casually, a wry smile quirking the corners of his lips upwards. Ivan had beautiful lips, Alfred had noticed. He wanted to bite them until they bled.

"Fuck off," he replied simply, reclining against the head of the bed and lighting his own cigarette, nose wrinkling at the smell. "You still have these things? I thought they went out of business in '91." Why use his own smokes when Ivan had at least three packets shoved into various pockets? The pants crumbled on his side of the bed required minimum movement to reach, after all.

Ivan drew his knees up, tenting the thin, dirty sheets that would probably need to be burned afterwards. In the process, the sheet slid down to reveal purpling bruises forming along the line of his hips, ones that were easily matched by those carried by Alfred. They didn't really show up on his tanned skin, though.

"Why haven't you said it?" the Russian asked abruptly, not looking at him.

Alfred knew exactly what he was talking about, but wished he didn't.

"I'm surprised I was the first one to say it," he continued casually. Ivan had said it some time before, in an angry, drunken haze of sex and hands fisted in sheets. Alfred had been surprised to hear it over his own screaming. Afterwards the Russian had confirmed the confession, touching and kissing him as if the world wasn't on the verge of exploding into nuclear hellfire.

"'Cause. Do I want to love you? Yeah. _Should_ I? Probably not."

"You're afraid?" Eyes that weren't quite a natural shade glanced at Alfred, who shrugged and exhaled, watching the smoke dance and twist and join the thin layer of grey crawling across the ceiling, searching for a way out.

The American bit down on the cigarette and held it between his teeth, folding his arms behind his head and slinging one ankle over the other.

"No. I just don't think it would be wise. Neither of us are at our most... Stable recently. Are my glasses over there?" He rubbed at his eyes with a knuckle, aware Ivan's gaze was still resting on him.

The solid mass next to him shifted, and long fingers handed him the frame of his glasses wordlessly.

They sat in silence, puffing away at their smokes. Was Ivan thinking about what to say? The man was slow, slow like a glacier and just as solid. Unmoveable, vast, consuming and cold, that was Ivan.

"I'm sorry," Alfred said absently, flicking some ash onto the carpet beside the bed. He wasn't even sure what he was apologising for. Ivan shifted closer, a heavy dint in the thin and shitty mattress.

Shitty mattress, shitty motel, shitty lover.

"I know." Cold fingers tip-toed themselves across Alfred's hips, tracing along the dark bruises already starting to yellow and heal.

"Hey, Vanya?" The fingers stiffened. "Do you ever think we could... That I could ever say it and mean it?" It wasn't that he didn't want to. He wasn't even sure if he was capable of it. Was there supposed to be a feeling other than the urge to grip and _squeeze_? Throat, thigh, anything in between.

"You could practice." The tone was almost playful, cool lips brushing against the curve of Alfred's neck. Ivan always sent a shudder of _something_ down his spine. Excitement or fear, he could never tell.

"I don't know how to," Alfred replied honestly. He supposed his relationship with Arthur used to be love, but it wasn't like whatever he had with Ivan.

"I could teach you," came the gentle reply, the gentle lips on his jaw, the gentle grip on his hip.

Bullshit. All of it. A farce, children playing pretend in the dirt as the grown-ups bickered among themselves.

Ivan must have felt him tense up: Thumbs reassuringly brushed broad swipes across his hips, a knee nudged his own until the larger man was straddling his leg lazily, careful kisses trailing down his collarbone.

"I'm not sure I want to learn," Alfred said simply, exhaling a lung of smoke and making a soft noise of protest as Ivan removed the cigarette from his mouth and put it out on the bedside table. The Russian had put out his own, but the taste of tobacco still laced the air he blew in a cool little stream against the other's jaw.

There was that silence again, when they both gathered what they knew and analysed it, an instinctive left-over of years long dead. He could feel Ivan's cheek on his shoulder, the man's eyelashes batting slowly against his neck.

Ivan's words were slow. "...You could always practice. I won't judge," he lied with such nonchalance that Alfred almost felt guilty for not believing it.

"...And how would I practice, Braginsky, may I ask?" Blue eyes met ones the most peculiar shade of lavender, which crinkled upwards in silent amusement.

There was no reply given, but the questing hands and mouth turned to his throat was a fairly good indication of the Russian's intent.

Perhaps Alfred's submission to the delicious, horrible feel of the winter and the faint scent of earth and blood was his own kind of affection, his hands so tanned compared to the off-eggshell colour of Ivan's hair as they exchanged and shared power in a manner unthinkable even decades ago, when their trysts were less touch-and-kiss and more scream-and-punch.

Perhaps this was 'practice', this was him learning, the intertwining hands and tongues guiding him towards a gradual acceptance of himself.

Perhaps this was his own strange kind of love.


End file.
